It’s the end of an era in animal activism. After 12 years confronting and disrupting the activities of Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, Sea Shepherd says it is calling it quits.

“What we discovered is that Japan is now employing military surveillance to watch Sea Shepherd ship movements in real time by satellite and if they know where our ships are at any given moment, they can easily avoid us,” Captain Paul Watson said recently on the Sea Shepherd website. “We cannot compete with their military grade technology.”

In the last two years, Sea Shepherd ships have only caught glimpses of the Japanese whaling vessels. “Every time we approached them, they would be just over the horizon,” Captain Watson told The Washington Post. “They knew where we were at every moment. We’re literally wasting our time and our money.”

Moreover, Japanese authorities escalated their resistance this year with the passing of new anti-terrorism laws and said they might even send the military to defend their illegal whaling activities for the first time ever.

Captain Watson said his organization will continue its efforts against whaling around the world. “We will never quit until the abomination of whaling is abolished forever by anyone, anywhere, for any reason.”